Mojaheed's claim on war criminals

Mojaheed's claim on war criminals a blatant lie
Says war crime expert Dr Hasan
Staff Correspondent
Source: Daily Star
October 28, 2007

Dr MA Hasan, an expert on war crimes during the Liberation War in 1971, yesterday came down heavily on Jamaat leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed's statement regarding the existence of war criminals in Bangladesh and termed it a blatant lie.

"We have strong evidence and documents against the people who were involved in war crimes during the Liberation War and what is needed now to bring the culprits to justice is an initiative," said Dr Hasan, convenor of War Crimes Fact Finding Committee, a group investigating war crimes by Pakistani army and their local collaborators in 1971.

"Ali Ahsan Mojaheed as president of Islami Chhatra Sangha in 1971 was in a leading position of Dhaka city Al Badr Bahini, one of the groups involved in killing Bangladeshi intellectuals at the fag end of the war," he said in a statement. The statement went on to say that the Al Badr played the key role in killing innocent intellectuals, professionals and also common people in 1971.

He said the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee investigated the 1971 incidents and found that local collaborators of the Pakistani army were involved in at least 53 types of crimes. The committee also traced at least 920 mass graves where Bengalis were dumped by the Pakistani army and their collaborators. The killings were clearly genocide as Bengalis were eliminated because they were Bengalis and the Hindus were killed because they were Hindus, the statement added.

Dr Hasan said most of the present-day leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami and members of Nezam-e-Islami and Muslim League were collaborators of the Pakistani army in committing war crimes.

"Many of the collaborators had misguided the youths and used them in the gruesome killings of innocent intellectuals," he said.

"Broadly, the collaborators were involved in 17 types of war crimes, 13 types of crimes against humanity and four types of genocides," the statement said.

Dr Hasan referred to the international definition of genocide and said as per the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by resolution 260 (III-A) of the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The acts are (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting something on the group's condition of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

An investigation by the War Crimes Fact Finding Committee found at least 191 people as Pakistani war criminals who have been accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and mass killing, the statement said. It demanded members of Razakars, Al Badr and Al Shams, who had collaborated in the war crimes, be brought to justice under international laws.

Dr Hasan is also member secretary of the Sector Commanders Forum, a platform of sector commanders of 1971 Liberation War.

He said the forum recently demanded that the Election Commission declare collaborators of 1971 disqualified for election and also to bring all criminals to justice who were involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity in 1971.

Dr Hasan also demanded trial under martial law of those people who fought against the army of this country in 1971.